


Work Life & Real Life

by SunMoonAndSpoon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Hanukkah, Yakov has dad angst, holiday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunMoonAndSpoon/pseuds/SunMoonAndSpoon
Summary: "All Yakov had wanted was for his students to eat chocolate and relax for five seconds instead of having whatever mini-crises they’re currently enduring. And, yes, he’d wanted to share something of himself, his background with them, the way he did with his own kids, when they were little and he saw them more than once or twice a year."Yakov gives his students gelt for Hanukkah.





	Work Life & Real Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [From Out of Nowhere There Came a Bear (rather)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rather/gifts).



> This is a holiday gift for my dear friend Reka, who mentioned in passing that she wanted to see Yakov giving gelt to his students. Reka, I hope this is something like what you were looking for!

“Here,” says Yakov, plunking a small blue gift bag in front of Yuri, who’s sitting at the the desk in Yakov’s living room.

 

Yuri raises an eyebrow. “What’s this for?” he asks, picking it up and dumping the contents into his hands - a small bag of gelt. “Why’re you giving me this?”

 

“Be quiet for a second,” says Yakov. He stalks over to the couch, where Georgi is feverishly typing out something, probably to that girl he’s been obsessing over since last week. Victor is laying next to him, his head on the couch’s seat cushion and his body suspended between the couch and the coffee table. His shirt is riding up, exposing his navel. His hair, loose from its ponytail, is almost entirely obscuring his face.

 

“Victor, sit _up,_ ” _he_ snaps. “You’re going to fall and break your spine and then I’ll have to explain to the international skating community that your career is in shambles because you were acting like a five-year-old in my apartment.”  
  
“I’ll tell the media that I was driven to it by the most dire of circumstances - your couch is uncomfortable. When are you going to let me buy you better furniture, hm Yakov?” 

  
“When your idea of _better_ doesn’t involve coating literally everything in multicolored lace like an old lady on drugs,” snorts Yakov. “What’s the next fashion phase going to be, everything made of neon pink leather?”

  
Mila laughs from her spot on the floor, and grabs Victor’s arm to help him get out of his awkward position and back onto the couch.  
  
Yakov places another blue bag on Victor’s lap, then hands one to Georgi, and another to Mila.

 

“Ahhhhh!!!” shrieks Mila, untying the ribbon around her bag of gelt. “I love this stuff, thank you so much!”  
  
“What _is_ it?” asks Yuri. “Is this money? It looks fake. Why’re you giving me fake money? And why are you only giving me a few coins? If you’re going to give me money, it should be a check or something.”  
  
“You’re such a dumb baby,” says Mila, rolling her eyes and unwrapping one of the pieces. “It’s _chocolate,_ not money. What, you’ve never seen gelt before?”  
  
“Why would I? I don’t eat chocolate! I only eat healthy food.” Yuri crosses his arms and glares pointedly at Mila. Victor points out that Yuri had eaten three cookies with lunch that very day.  
  
Kicking vaguely at the air, Yuri says, “that’s different, my grandpa made those, of course I’m going to eat them. It’s not like Yakov _made_ this, and anyway my grandpa doesn’t make me stuff with chocolate because _I hate chocolate.”_

 

“You like white chocolate!” pipes up Mila. “Why’re you always lying about stuff?”  
  
“I’m not lying, you ugly idiot!!” 

  
“If you’re like this at age ten, I don’t even want to imagine what you’ll be like when you hit puberty. Yakov, thank you _so much_ for this _incredibly_ thoughtful gift.” Victor raises an eyebrow pointedly at Yuri while he winds his too-long hair back into a ponytail. “We appreciate you sharing your traditions with us, even those of us who haven’t yet learned to show gratitude

 

“It’s not _that_ thoughtful,” scoffs Yakov, suddenly embarrassed by Victor’s sarcastic sincerity. “I just had it laying around."

  
This is blatantly untrue - it wouldn’t be in separate gift bags if that were the case, nor would he have made gone out of his way to order dairy-free gelt for Georgi and white chocolate gelt for Yuri.

 

Now he just feels awkward about having given them anything. Only Victor is actually Jewish, and that's because he decided to convert after Yakov took him to synagogue once for a concert. His intention had been making Victor listen to a song he might be skating to, not to convert him like Victor’s ridiculous parents had accused him of — but Victor is impulsive and Victor does whatever the hell he wants. So now he’s Jewish. As if Yakov had raised him on paper, not just in practice.

 

It didn’t matter, but also, it did.

 

This time, all Yakov had wanted was for his students to eat chocolate and relax for five seconds instead of having whatever mini-crises they’re currently enduring. And, yes, he’d wanted to share something of himself, his background with them, the way he did with his own kids, when they were little and he saw them more than once or twice a year. 

 

He sits down on the the couch next to Georgi, leans back and crosses his arms. Yuri is yelling about how Victor can’t tell him what to do and also, by the way, Victor’s armpits smell like moldy dog poop, _and also,_ he’s stupid. Victor is patting Yuri on the head, laughing and ignoring the content of his shouts. Mila has entered the fray, sitting on Georgi’s lap and trying to rip his phone out of his hands so that she can research the Hanukkah story. She, of course, immediately discovers something on Georgi’s phone that makes her shriek and throw the phone behind the couch.

 

Yakov shuts his eyes, lets their squabbling wash over him. He remembers his daughter Oksana stealing all of her little brother Vasily’s gelt and Vasily chucking the dreidel at Oksana’s head. He’d screamed at them until they cried, then wished that he hadn’t. 

 

He remembers his own arm around Lilia as they watched Oksana light the menorah the winter she was nine, half awed by her purposeful face in the soft glow of the fire, and half ready to pounce if she screwed up and dropped the candle. 

 

He remembers serving his kids burnt latkes the first time he had them over for the holiday after the divorce, and Vasily saying he could help next time, his mother had taught him. He remembers Vasily teaching Victor and Georgi how to make them, and being so surprised that his real children and his fake children could be talking to each other, that his job and his life could be the same. 

 

He opens his eyes and takes a piece of gelt from Yuri, who is struggling to get the wrapper off. He unwraps it and hands it back. Yuri squints at it, and promises to _try it_ , even though he hates chocolate. 

 

“It’s a Hanukkah tradition,” Yakov says. “Adults give kids chocolate coins. There’s a game you can play with it, too. If you don’t eat it all before I dig up one of our old dreidels, I’ll show you how to play.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my work and want to commission me, hit me up at sunmoonandspoon@gmail.com.


End file.
